Brewing Better Together

Dont beat em, join em. That's the cooperative thinking among craft brewers who work together to ensure one anothers success. In fostering a spirit of collaboration, they've created a powerful bloc that is showing steady growth and challenging established beer giants. It's a lucrative model - one that other producers of artisan or locally sourced goods would be wise to follow.

- Corie Brown

Old Foghorn is a killer name for a stout from the coast of Northern California, thought Lenny Mendonca, who made the beer part of his lineup when he opened Half Moon Bay Brewing Co. in 2000. In short order, a letter arrived informing the fledgling brewer that Fritz Maytag’s Anchor Brewing Co. already owned the evocative name. A senior partner at management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, Mendonca knew the drill the legal chain of events that occurs when one infringes on a competitor’s trademark. He received a letter. But it was not what he expected.

“It was a personal letter from Fritz not a letter from his lawyers suggesting we find another name and wishing us luck,” says Mendonca, who came to understand that Maytag’s collegial, low-key style was the rule among the craft-beer brethren.

“I will return a call from anyone in the craft-beer industry who wants to talk,” he says. “Fritz and the other early craft brewers set that tone.”

Fifty years after Maytag bought Anchor Brewing and introduced craft beer to America, the sector’s esprit de corps extends well beyond friendly chats. Craft brewers open their doors to others. They share equipment and help train one another’s staffs. Trade secrets? Craft brewers take pride in having none.

When Adam Avery of Avery Brewing Co. in Boulder, Colo., and Vinnie Cilurzo, owner of Russian River Brewing Co. in Santa Rosa, Calif., discovered they both produced a beer called Salvation, they joined forces to create one they called Collaboration Not Litigation Ale. Such joint craft beers are common.

“It is a very unusual culture, and it shouldn’t be,” says Mendonca, now a director emeritus at McKinsey. “Not being an asshole is good for business.”